Once again, the Yankees did not go down without a fight. A spirited ninth inning rally ultimately fell short and the Indians walked away with a 3-2 win in Thursday’s series opener. Can’t win ’em all.
Not Sharp Nova
Ivan Nova’s night can be summed up by the fourth inning. He walked the No. 7 hitter on five pitches, gave up a single to the No. 8 hitter, then gave up a run-scoring single to the No. 9 hitter, all with two outs. That made it 3-0 Indians and tells you what kinda night it was for Nova. He was on the edge of escaping the inning but couldn’t make a pitch when he needed to make a pitch. Sometimes that happens.
All told, Nova allowed three runs on six hits and two walks in five innings. It certainly was not his sharpest outing, far from it, and this was just one of those nights, you know? Pitchers aren’t going to be on every time out, especially not when they are 16 months removed from Tommy John surgery. Nova threw 94 pitches, got just seven swings and misses, and allowed a Hughesian 21 foul balls. He benefited from some fine defense and averaged 4.27 pitches per batters faced, which … yikes. Not a good night for Nova. Not a disaster but not good either. Shake it off, try again in five days.
A Long Run
The Yankees scored their first run on a very long Alex Rodriguez home run Thursday night. It sounded like it was shot out of a cannon. Alex’s bat still makes that special sound when he connects. Statcast measured the home run at 426 feet and 107 mph off the bat. That feels low. A-Rod really crushed that pitch. Cleared the first section of seats and landed in the left field bleachers.
The home run was their first run but not their only scoring chance against Josh Tomlin. The Yankees got a leadoff double in the third (Chase Headley) and had two on with one out in that inning (Stephen Drew walked), but both Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner grounded out to end the threat. Drew drew a two-out four-pitch walk (!) in the fifth before Ellsbury grounded out. They didn’t get much else going against Tomlin at all.
Fighting Spirit
Unlike the last two years, these 2015 Yankees never seem to go down quietly. They had the three come-from-behind wins over the Twins, and, in the ninth inning of this game, they put the tying run at third base and winning run at second after coming into the frame down 3-1. The inning started with an A-Rod single and an A-Rod stolen base — another steal! he still has time to go 30/30, you know — then Carlos Beltran drove him in with a one-out single through the shift.
Following Beltran’s single, Greg Bird walked on five balls — home play ump Dan Iassogna called a 3-0 autostrike on a pitch down, whatevs — and Headley advanced the runners with a grounder to first. Carlos Santana maybe had a chance at the game-ending 3-6-3 double play, but he bobbled the ball and had to settle for just the out at first. That brought up Didi Gregorius, who slapped a 1-1 pitch to left for a routine fly ball and the final out. Yankee Stadium had a pretty loud “Di-Di! Di-Di!” chant going. It was pretty cool. The place would have exploded had he gotten a hit there. Alas.
Leftovers
Adam Warren chucked 31 pitches in two innings, allowing one hit to the unstoppable Jason Kipnis. Kipnis had three hits, all line drive to the opposite field. Brian McCann threw Kipnis out trying to steal second and Gregorius gets a mention for a fantastic tag — the throw pulled him to the second base side of the bag, and he was able to make the catch and swipe tag Kipnis on the way by, all in one motion. T’was pretty.
Joe Girardi waved the white flag and brought in Chris Capuano to pitch the final two innings. Capuano allowed two base-runners in the eighth, escaped the jam with the help of an Ellsbury sliding catch, then tossed a perfect ninth against the bottom of the order. Any time you can steal some outs with Capuano to rest the other relievers, it’s a plus.
Drew reached base three times! Too bad the Yankees couldn’t take advantage. He has now reached base 12 times this month, but who’s counting? A-Rod’s homer, A-Rod’s single, Headley’s double, Beltran’s single, and Drew’s generously scored infield single — it was a hard-hit grounder Kipnis bobbled — were the team’s only hits.
I only remember three hard hit balls going for outs — ex-Yankees farmhand Abe Almonte made a spectacular jumping catch at the wall to rob Gardner of extra bases, and both Beltran and Bird hit line drives at the right fielder. They weren’t getting robbed or anything. So it goes. Baseball, man.
Iassogna’s wide outside corner to lefty batters didn’t exactly help matters, but let’s not blame him for the Yankees not scoring enough runs. It’s just an observation. Girardi was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in the ninth inning. Third ejection of the year for Joe.
And finally, the Yankees are now 1-3 against the Indians this year, which bites. They’re 13-13 against last place teams this season. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite ’em at some point.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Here are the box score and video highlights for the game and here are the updated standings and postseason odds for the season. Also please check out our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages. By my unofficial count, this is the 40th series of the season for the Yankees, and YES has used 16 different booth combinations. Anyway, here’s the loss probability graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
This series is just getting started. The Yankees and Indians will play game two of this four-game set Friday night. Masahiro Tanaka and Carlos Carrasco will be the pitching matchup. That should be a fun one. There are still six games left on this homestand — there’s another ten-game homestand right around the corner too, you know — so if you want to catch any of the games live at Yankee Stadium, RAB Tickets can get you in the door.
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